Patrol

Louisiana Officer Found Guilty of Manslaughter in Shooting of Boy

March 27, 2017

An Avoyelles Parish, LA, jury convicted a former Marksville deputy marshal of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter Friday in a shooting at the end of a chase that left a 6-year-old boy dead and the boy's father seriously wounded.

Derrick Stafford, a 33-year-old former Marksville police officer and part-time city marshal, left the courthouse in shackles after the jury returned to the courtroom to announce their verdict by a 10-2 vote following nearly three hours of deliberation, the Advocate reports.

Both Stafford and Greenhouse were arrested just days after the shooting killed Jeremy, an autistic first-grader. At the trial, prosecutors repeatedly showed clips from a body camera video of the shooting that showed Few's hands raised out of the window as the shots struck the vehicle.

The school principal and school superintendent who sparked national outrage when they had the school resource officer assigned to the campus escorted off the premise after he ticketed the principal for being illegally parked have each made an attempt to make amends.

Chief Prosecutor Néstor Martínez identified the attacker as José Aldemar Rojas, an ELN operative who had previously lost an arm in an explosives accident, according to The Associated Press. He was allegedly driving a 1993 Nissan SUV loaded with 175 pounds of pentolite, a highly explosive material.

Officer Jarius Daugherty said Atlanta Police officers have received multiple death threats after the death of 18-year-old D’ettrick Griffin, who was shot and killed by a plainclothes Atlanta officer when he attempted to steal his car at a gas station earlier this week.